Interference of English L2 in the acquisition of Tagalog ...isli.khu.ac.kr/journal/content/data/32_1/3.pdf · Interference of English L2 in the acquisition of Tagalog L1 word order

Linguistic Research 32(1), 61-90

DOI: 10.17250/khisli.32.1.201504.003

Interference of English L2 in the acquisition of

Tagalog L1 word order7*

Seth H. Ronquillo**

(University of California, Los Angeles)

Ronquillo, Seth H. 2015. Interference of English L2 in the acquisition of Tagalog L1

word order. Linguistic Research 32(1), 61-90. This paper discusses how the second language (L2) of a child could interfere with the first language (L1) acquisition of word order and case, particularly when the two languages are typologically distinct. This research is based on data from a task-oriented experiment with a Tagalog-English bilingual child, and to my knowledge, is the only recent study to investigate the effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of syntactic word order in Tagalog. Tagalog has a relatively free word order complemented by a comparatively rich case marking system on determiners (Rackowski 2002). When a child learns L2 like English, however, interference could delay or prevent the complete acquisition of L1 grammar due to an uneven amount of input between the two languages (Polinsky 1995). In this study, a bilingual child (Tagalog L1; English L2) is asked to describe the action in an image using Tagalog sentences, and then match another set of images with a stimulus Tagalog sentence. The results show that the bilingual child’s elicited sentences have a fixed word order and limited case marking, more similar to English than to Tagalog. This could explain his low performance in the picture-matching task. These results suggest that there is a possible interference in the bilingual child’s complete acquisition of Tagalog syntactic word order because of the input he receives from English. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to further explore the findings presented. (University of California, Los Angeles)

Keywords Attrition, Bilingualism, Case, English, Heritage Language, Linguistics, Tagalog, Word Order

* I thank Prof. Nina Hyams and Victoria Mateu of UCLA as well as the other anonymous reviewers

who have provided me with their comments to improve the overall quality of this paper.

** This paper has been previously presented at the 5th Annual Workshop on Immigrant Languages in

the Americas.

62 Seth H. Ronquillo

1. Introduction

The Austronesian language Tagalog, spoken in the Philippines, permits a

relatively variable syntactic word order including VOS (most default word order),

VSO and SVO (least common word order). To compensate for the potential

ambiguity presented by such syntactic alterations, each argument of the verb in a

Tagalog sentence receives a distinct case marker that indicates its grammatical

function (De Guzman 1976; Rackowski 1996). Segalowitz and Galang (1976) studied

the acquisition of word order in native Tagalog-speaking children, particularly with

respect to the comprehension of actor-focus and patient-focus sentences, which are

respectively similar to active and passive constructions in English. Segalowitz and

Galang concluded that Tagalog-speaking children have better mastery of patient-focus

than actor-focus in VOS structures, and that children would use the SVO structure

most productively with actor-focus sentences because they associate the first noun of

the sentence with the agent of the verb. Their study however does not provide much

insight on the interaction between syntactic word order and case morphology.

Laughren (2002) notes in her analysis of the Australian language Warlpiri that a

specific set of case markers indicates grammatical functions in the DPs of languages

that allow word order variation, such as Tagalog. English, on the other hand, does

not have the same syntactic freedom as Tagalog. It has a more fixed SVO structure,

which signals the grammatical function of DPs and supplements its deficient case

marking system (Matthews, Lieven, Theakston, & Tomasello 2005; Polinsky 2006).

In English, the agent of the verb is also commonly associated with the first noun of

the sentence, which corresponds to the subject in the default SVO structure (Kamide,

Scheeper, & Altmann 2003).

This paper examines possible interference in the acquisition of first language

(L1) word order variation and case marking by a 7-year old Tagalog-speaking child

after he learns a second language (L2), English, that is typologically quite different

from Tagalog. The child subject, John, was first exposed to English at age 4 when

he began to attend school, and since then, has been more exposed to English than to

Tagalog. This is the only recent study in my knowledge to investigate the effects of

English as an L2 specifically on the acquisition of syntactic word order variation in

Tagalog as an L1.

Using the example of American Russian, Polinsky (1995, 2010) discusses how

Interference of English L2 in the acquisition of Tagalog L1 word order 63

the attrition of L1 grammar occurs for heritage speakers, bilinguals who never reach

native-like competence in their L1. She argues that this results from the incomplete

acquisition of the native tongue when language learners begin to receive greater

input from their L2 before fully acquiring the grammar of their L1—often due to the

dominance of L2 in their speech community. It is important to distinguish this

phenomenon from L1 transfer, where the grammatical properties of L1 influences the

acquisition of L2, since the topic we are considering involves the interference to the

complete acquisition of L1 caused by the learning of an L2 (Polinsky, Benmamoun,

Montrul 2010). In the case of Tagalog, if my child subject has fully learned how

word order variation and case morphology complement each other, he should be able

to form grammatical sentences using the default VOS structure. Yet, if he—as a

bilingual in Tagalog (L1) and (English) L2—is unable to perform word order

alterations in Tagalog and instead uses a fixed word order with minimal case

marking similar to English, this could indicate the interference in his full acquisition

of word order variability in Tagalog due to the influence of his English L2. While

the results of this study do not predict my child subject’s likelihood of fully

acquiring word order variability in Tagalog, it presents the probable areas in his L1

grammar where the syntactic interference by his L2 could be taking place.

1.1. Brief overview of Tagalog syntax: Verb focus

One of the most discussed topics in Tagalog syntax involves its verb focus

system, analogous to grammatical voice in English, which is indicated by verbal

infixation (Aldridge 2012; Schacter & Otanes 1972). For the purposes of this paper,

the discussion will be limited to actor-focus and patient-focus verbs, which roughly

correspond to the active and passive voices in English. In actor-focus structures, the

verb is inflected with the infix –um- and the semantic focus of the sentence is on

the actor/agent of the action. The agent receives the nominative case marker and the

object/patient (complement) of the action receives the accusative case marker

(Schacter & Otanes 1972; Segalowitz & Galang 1976). In Tagalog, a determiner

accompanies the noun (whether common noun or proper name), and this determiner

carries the case morphology of the DP1: The nominative is signaled by the

1 Tagalog is actually an absolutive-ergative language (Aldridge 2012), but for this paper, we will

use the nominative-accusative case distinction to simplify typological theory.


determiner ang2, and the accusative by the determiner ng3 /naŋ/. The agent of the

action for an actor-focus verb serves as the topic of the sentence, similar to subject

of the sentence in English. As such, in the default verb-initial order in Tagalog for

transitive verbs (VOS), the actor-focus structure corresponds to verb-patient-agent for

transitive verbs (1) and verb-agent for intransitive verbs (2):

(1) K<um>ain ng saging ang bataʔ (Segalowitz & Galang 1976)

<AF.Perf>eat Det.ACC banana Det.NOM child

‘The child ate the banana.’

(2) T<um>awa ang bataʔ

<AF.Perf>laugh Det.NOM child

‘The child laughed.’

In patient-focus structures the verb is inflected by the infix -in- and the semantic

focus of the sentence is on the object/patient of the action. The patient/object

receives nominative case while the agent of the action receives the accusative case.

Thus, in patient-focus structures, the patient of the action serves as the topic of the

sentence, similar to how the object of a transitive action in an English passive voice

becomes the subject. In the default VOS syntactic order of Tagalog for transitive

verbs, this structure is verb-agent-patient for transitive verbs (3). It would not be

grammatical to use a patient-focus verb for intransitive verbs, since they do not have

a patient (4):

(3) K<in>ain ng bataʔ ang saging (Segalowitz & Galang 1976)

<PF.Perf>eat Det.ACC child Det.NOM banana

‘The banana was eaten by the child.’

(4) *T<in>awa ang bataʔ

<PF.Perf>laugh Det.NOM child

*‘The child was laughed’

With this understanding of Tagalog focus system and case marking, it becomes

2 For this study, we will treat yung and ang as allomorphs of the nominative case determiner.3 For the purposes of this study, we will treat nung and ng as allomorphs of the accusative

determiner.


clear then how word order variation operates. Because the case morphology on the

determiner indicates the DP’s thematic function (agent or patient), the order in which

the DPs appear in the sentence does not necessarily matter. The following show the

word order permutations of actor-focus (5) and patient-focus (6) sentences in

Tagalog, which particularly demonstrate greater variability in transitive verbs:

(5) (a) K<um>ain ng saging ang bataʔ

<AF.Perf>eat Det.ACC banana Det.NOM child

‘The child ate the banana.’

(b) K<um>ain ang bataʔ ng saging

<AF.Perf>eat Det.NOM child Det.ACC banana

‘The child ate the banana’

(6) (a) K<in>ain ng bataʔ ang saging

<PF.Perf>eat Det.ACC child Det.NOM banana


(b) K<in>ain ang saging ng bataʔ

<AF.Perf>eat Det.NOM banana Det.ACC child

‘The banana was eaten by the child’

Tagalog also allows for an SVO word order, often referred to as ay-cleft or

ay-inversion due to its characteristic linker morpheme ay. This sentence type is

rarely used in colloquial language though, being mostly associated with a formal

style of speaking. In ay-inversion, the topic of the sentence moves from a

post-predicate to a pre-predicate position. As such, the nominative case appears on

the determiner that precedes the verb. Structurally, this Tagalog SVO construction

appears quite similar to the default English word order, with the exception of the

linker morpheme ay required to link the topic of the sentence to the predicate:

(7) (a) Ang saging ay k<in>ain ng bataʔ (Segalowitz & Galang

Det.NOM banana LINK <PF.Perf>eat Det.ACC child 1976)


(b) ? Ang bataʔ ay k<in>ain ng saging

Det.NOM child LINK <PF.Perf>eat Det.ACC banana

‘The child was eaten by the banana’


(8) (a) Ang bataʔ ay k<um>ain ng saging

Det.NOM child LINK <AF.Perf>eat Det.ACC banana

‘The child ate the banana’

(b) ?Ang saging ay k<um>ain ng bataʔ

Det.NOM banana LINK <AF.Perf>eat Det.ACC child

‘The banana ate the child.’

It should be noted that even though ay-inversion only permits the DP with

nominative case to move to the left of the predicate, it does not have any constraints

on thematic function, as both agent and patient DPs can become the topic of the

SVO sentence depending on the focus of the verb.

1.2. Brief overview of English syntax and its difference to

Tagalog

Unlike Tagalog, English has a fixed SVO word order structure in both the active

and the passive voices, and case marking morphology only occurs on pronouns

(Matthews, Lieven, Theakston, & Tomasello 2005; Polinsky 2006). In English, the

agent theta role is commonly assigned to the subject position in the default SVO

active voice (Kamide, Scheeper, & Altmann, 2003). To further show the default-ness

of the SVO word order in English, the passive voice places the object/patient of the

verb in the subject position of the sentence, and the agent appears in an optional

by-phrase. Indeed, this English SVO structure, especially that of the passive voice

(10), appears quite similar to ay-inversion in Tagalog:

(9) English: The child ate the banana. Active

Tagalog: Ang bataʔ ay k<um>ain ng saging

Actor-Focus

Det.NOM child LINK <AF.Perf>eat Det.ACC banana.

(10) English: The banana was eaten by the child. Passive

Tagalog: Ang saging ay k<in>ain ng bataʔ

Patient-Focus

Det.NOM banana LINK <PF.Perf>eat Det.ACC child.


2. Methods

Originally, my research question was simply to investigate how a monolingual

Tagalog-speaking child would produce and comprehend SVO sentences, since the

aforementioned research supports that this sentence type is uncommon and not

preferred by L1 learners. However, finding a monolingual Tagalog-speaking child

proved to be difficult. Since they were exposed to an optimal amount of Tagalog, I

initially advertised through my social media networks in the Philippines to solicit

child participants there who can take part in the study through video chat, but no

parent responded to my request. I subsequently reached out to the local Los Angeles

Filipino community to solicit child participants, but all of the Filipino-American

children that were available were English monolinguals. Others who were able to

speak Tagalog spoke English predominantly and were too old to be primary

participants in a study on language development (ages 13 and over). The only child

subject who ended up participating in this study was bilingual, making my original

research inquiry inappropriate. As such, I had to alter my study in order to test

instead how an L2 that is typologically different from a child’s L1 could affect a

child’s production and comprehension of sentences that have variable syntactic word

order.

Subject: My child subject, John (pseudonym), is a Filipino-American boy who

was 7;8 at the time of the study. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, and

was exposed to Tagalog as his L1. He has an older sister. Both of his parents are

immigrants from the Philippines and have been speaking to him and his sister in

Tagalog since they were born. John was first exposed to English at age 4 when he

began to attend school. When I asked his parents about how often he speaks in

Tagalog, they said that they teach their two children to write in Tagalog and compel

them to speak it at home, since they already learn and speak English in school all

day. Often though, their two children would converse in English whenever they are

only speaking to each other. The parents also mentioned to me that John’s Tagalog

vocabulary is sometimes lacking (viz. he would say “hair over eyes” in Tagalog as

he forgets or does not know the word for “eyebrows”), but they did not mention

anything peculiar about his grammar. With his upbringing, John demonstrates that he

has had substantial exposure to a bilingual environment before the age of full

language development, making his linguistic performance ripe for an investigation on


language interference. John was not available for follow-ups after the time of study.

My control for the study, Sandra (pseudonym), is a 54-year-old Filipina woman

who came to the U.S. at the age of 44 and currently lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Sandra was born in a rural province in the Philippines, and learned the Philippine

language Bikol as her L1.4 She began to learn Tagalog and English when she began

school at the age of 5, and has been speaking Tagalog predominantly since. Ideally,

my control for this study should be another (monolingual) Tagalog-speaking child as

old as John, but having a control like Sandra who has acquired native mastery of

and predominantly speaks the language is important so that John’s Tagalog-speaking

ability can be examined accurately. Additionally, even though Sandra is much older

than John, the challenges in finding predominantly Tagalog-speaking children and

youth proved to be a challenge during the time of this study, as mentioned earlier.

Production Task: To test what word orders and case morphology my subjects

would produce in Tagalog, I prepared a PowerPoint slideshow that had 32 slides.

Each slide contained one image to be used as stimulus for eliciting Tagalog

sentences from both of my subjects. I asked my subjects to look at the image that

appears and describe to me the action that they see in the photograph using one

Tagalog sentence. I then recorded their production using the audio software

Audacity® and subsequently transcribed them by listening to the recording.

Comparing the utterances of the participants provides data on their ability to use and

preferences in syntactic variations in Tagalog.

The first three images were used to prime the subjects and make sure that they

understood the task at hand: The first image demonstrated an intransitive action (the

dog laughed); the second demonstrated a transitive action verb relating an animate

and inanimate object with each other (the man ate the sandwich); the third image is

also transitive but it relates the action between two animate objects (the boy played

with the girl). Once I confirmed that the subjects understood the instructions for the

task, I showed them the other 29 images, 12 of which were transitive actions

between two animate objects, 11 transitive actions between an animate object and an

inanimate object, 5 emotion verbs (the girl loved the dog), and 1 is an intransitive

action (the baby cried). I used more images depicting transitive verbs in my

experiment because as shown in (5)-(6), transitive verbs allow for the most word

4 Reid and Liao (2004) discuss the typological similarity of Philippine languages, including Tagalog

and Bikol.


order variability in Tagalog and because of how the main focus of this study is to

test the production of verbs with an agent-patient relation. The single intransitive

image and the 5 emotion verbs were dispersed throughout the slideshow, in order to

prevent the participants from defaulting into repetitive word orders in their responses

during the production task. Additionally, non-physical elements, such as floating

hearts and thought bubbles, were incorporated in images that depicted emotion verbs

to ensure that the participants would not confuse them with simple transitive actions

that only involved a direct, physical action between agent and patient. I presented all

of the production stimuli to the subjects before providing them with the

comprehension tasks.

Comprehension Tasks: To test how well John comprehends the different word

order permutations of the same patient-focus sentence, I prepared a PowerPoint

slideshow that contained 5 pairs of images, each image pair was shown 4 times in

a rotation cycle for a total of 20 slides (See Appendix §7.1 for complete list of

images) Each pair of images depicted a transitive action, and each image illustrated

either one of the following: a) agent performing an action on patient (e.g. The man

was kissed by the woman) or b) patient of first image performing an action on agent

of first picture (e.g. The woman was kissed by the man)—i.e. reversal of argument

relationship in first picture. Each picture-pair presentation was accompanied by a

stimulus sentence using a word order permutation (either VOS, VSO, or SVO) of the

same patient-focus sentence that shows the action in the images. Thus, in (11), the

image on the right is the only image that would serve as a correct response. In one

of the sentence repetitions however, I used a second SVO sentence, with the agent

and patient of the actions reversed, in order to ensure that the study participants are

not pointing at the same image by rote:

(11) Stimuli: The man was kissed by the woman (right)

SVO-Inverted: The woman was kissed by the man (left)


VOS H<in>alikan ng babae ang lalaki

<PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC woman Det.NOM man

VSO H<in>alikan ang lalaki ng babae

<PF.Perf>kiss Det.NOM man Det.ACC woman

SVO Ang lalaki ay h<in>alikan ng babae

Det.NOM man LINK <PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC woman

SVO-Inverted Ang babae ay h<in>alikan ng lalaki

Det.NOM woman LINK <PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC man

Each sentence was presented twice. I then asked my subjects to point to the

image they think is being described by the sentence and their responses were

recorded. One of the image pairs depicted an action where the agent and the patient

of the action were unclear, so the data from this image pair will not be considered

(see (5) in Appendix §7.1). Thus, in total, the performance of the subjects in 16 out

of the 20 slides was used for this study. It was important to present all of the

comprehension tasks to the subjects after providing them with the production stimuli,

so that my utterances would not influence the word order they use for the production

task. This comprehension task complements the production task, since the SVO word

order—uncommon in Tagalog—is intentionally utilized to test if the child subject

has fully acquired it in his grammar.


3. Results

Production Task: John exhibited a significant amount of lexical code-switching in

comparison to Sandra. In terms of word order, John surprisingly only used the SVO

word order, which as noted earlier is rarely used in casual speech in Tagalog. Sandra

used all three word orders. When he was about to complete uttering a sentence with

the verb-initial structure, John “corrected” himself and reverted back to a sentence

with SVO word order (12):

(12) Nag-ku~kulay yung # yung bataʔ nag-ku~kulay

AF-Imp~color Det.NOM # Det.NOM child AF-Imp~color

‘The child is coloring (the pictures)’

In their SVO sentences, both John and Sandra only assigned the agent theta-role

to the pre-predicate, subject position. When Sandra gave verb-initial sentences, the

agent was also the first noun of her sentences. (John did not produce any verb-initial

sentences, as he only produced SVO sentences.) These results are consistent with

Segalowitz and Galang’s (1976) findings that the first noun of the sentences in

Tagalog is often associated with the agent of the action. Most strikingly, John never

used the ay linker morpheme to conjoin the topic to the predicate of his SVO

sentences, while Sandra always used the ay linker in her SVO constructions. There

were instances when John either produced an incomplete sentence or had hesitations

in completing a sentence, in which case I asked him to repeat the sentence he uttered:

(13) *Yung titser t<in>u~turuan paano yun poʔ

Det.NOM teacher <PF>Imp~teach how that.DEM HON

‘*The teacher is teaching how that’

(14) (a) *Yung babae t<in>i~teach poʔ yung bataʔna

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~teach HON Det.NOM child LINK

yung storya

Det.NOM story

‘The child is being taught by the woman that the story’

(b) Yung babae s<in>a~sabi ano nang-ya~yari sa storya

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~say what AF-Imp~happen Det.DAT story

‘What is happening in the story is being said by the woman’


Table 1 summarizes how the subjects used word order during the production

task.

Table 1. Production task – Number of sentences uttered by subjects,

categorized by the word order they used

It is important to note some peculiarities in the way John used case marking in

comparison to Sandra. In the actor-focus sentences he produced, John correctly

assigned nominative and accusative case to the agent and patient, respectively. Thus,

his actor-focus sentences would have been perfectly grammatical if he had just used

the ay linker between the topic and the predicate of the sentence. (15) shows John’s

utterance, and (16) shows the grammatical sentence produced by Sandra:

(15) Yung bataʔ k<um>a~kain ng watermelon

Det.NOM child <AF>Imp~eat Det.ACC watermelon

‘The child is eating the watermelon’

(16) K<um>a~kain sya ng pakwan

<AF>Imp~eat 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC watermelon

‘He is eating watermelon’

However, when it came to John’s patient-focus sentences, the opposite was true.


Considering that all of his sentences are SVO, he would use the nominative case marker

for both the agent DP (pre-predicate) and the patient DP (post-predicate) whenever he

would use a verb with the patient-focus inflection, which normally assigns the

nominative case only to the patient of the action. In other words, John used the same

case marker twice in patient-focus sentences, which is ungrammatical in Tagalog, even

though he would use distinct case markers in actor-focus sentences. (17) shows John’s

utterance, and (18) shows the grammatical sentence produced by Sandra:

(17) Yung bataʔ k<in>ick yung bola

Det.NOM child <PF.Perf>kick Det.NOM ball

‘The ball is kicked by the child’

(18) S<in>ipa ng bataʔ yung bola

<PF.Perf>kick Det.ACC child Det.NOM ball

‘The ball was kicked by the child’

Comprehension Task: Sandra made no errors in the comprehension task, but John

performed poorly overall, getting 8 out of the 16 sentences correct. However, if

these 16 sentences are broken down into VOS, VSO, and SVO sentence types, a

clearer picture of John’s performance can be seen. Interestingly, he comprehended

the VOS patient-focus sentences best, making no errors with them, though he never

uttered them during the production tasks. The results of the comprehension task are

given in Table 2.

Table 2. Comprehension task – Number of patient-focus sentences that the

subjects correctly matched with the designated image


He showed the worst performance on SVO patient-focus sentences, even though

this was the only word order he used during the production task. It might be

interesting to note that the one and only instance that John chose the correct image

for the SVO sentence stimulus was when the agent DP and the patient DP of the

sentence were both proper nouns. That the determiner of proper nouns in Tagalog

has a different morphology from the determiner of common nouns could be a factor

for this nuance. (See (1) in Appendix §7.1)

4. Discussion

Polinsky (1995, 2006) describes the grammar of heritage speakers who speak

American Russian, a reduced version of Russian spoken by child immigrants who

learned the language as L1 but became more English-dominant during their

childhood upon arrival in the U.S. In her description of the language of 20 to

30-year-old speakers, Polinsky characterizes some of the morphosyntactic differences

between American Russian and Russian speakers, including the following: American

Russian speakers have a deficient lexicon in both their production and

comprehension of the full language; the case system of the reduced language appears

more like English, being less complex than Russian which has a six-case system; the

word order is more restricted, similar to English which normally permits SVO only,

in comparison to Russian which has variable word order. Polinsky notes that there is

a relationship between the lexical deficiency and syntactic attrition of American

Russian speakers, and argues that there is a continuum of speaker proficiency

amongst these heritage speakers when their grammars are compared to native

Russian speech.

John’s knowledge of Tagalog shows some of the same patterns as found in

Polinsky’s American Russian speakers. Like the speakers of American Russian, my

child speaker’s code-switching indicates his deficient Tagalog vocabulary, and more

importantly, his morphosyntactic ability in Tagalog shows a level of competence that

is low for a child his age. Even though his L1 is Tagalog, the data shows that a

possible interference from his exposure to his English L2 could have affected his full

acquisition of his native Tagalog. If he had fully acquired the syntax of Tagalog,

John’s performance in both the production and comprehension tasks should be


comparable to Sandra’s.

John’s greatest difficulties concerned the morphosyntax of Tagalog patient-focus,

similar to English passives. It has long been observed that the passive construction

in English is also one of the later aspects of grammar to be acquired by children

(Maratsos & Abramovitch 1975; Maratsos, Fox, Becker, & Chalkley 1985; Borer &

Wexler 1987). In production, John did poorly with case-marking on the DPs in

patient-focus sentences and also with the SVO word order in the comprehension of

such sentence. While Segalowitz and Galang (1976) concluded in their study that

children learning Tagalog have a preference for passive-focus sentences, the

well-documented difficulty of acquiring the English passive for children might be the

cause for the vulnerability of John’s understanding of patient-focus in Tagalog,

considering that the patient-focus and the passive are analogous.

Schachter and Otanes (1972) explain that in Tagalog ay-inversion, a DP gets the

nominative case ang when it moves to a pre-predicate position, as it becomes the

topic of the sentence. John appears to recognize this rule since he produces

nominative case on all DPs that appear before the predicate, whether the sentence is

actor- or patient-focus. If syntactic interference by English indeed takes place in

John’s Tagalog grammar, it is reasonable to speculate that his exposure to English

word order could motivate his preference for Tagalog SVO word order, as well as

his disregard for the ay linker—a linker that does not exist in English sentences

where the agent of the action is pre-predicate. This could also explain his

“correction” from a verb-initial to an SVO construction in (12). However, he seems

also to have his own rule where only the agent of the action can move to the

pre-predicate position. Analyzing his utterances, it is clear how analogous his

Tagalog word order is to the English parallel of the same sentence:

(19) Thematic: Agent DP Verb Patient DP

English: The child kick the ball

Tagalog Yung bataʔ k<in>ick yung bola

Det.NOM child <PF.PERF>kick Det.NOM ball


The sentence in (17) is problematic, however, because the verbal patient-focus

infix –in- should mark only the patient, and not the agent, as the topic of the


sentence. For actor-focus sentences, John has case morphology distinctions, which

means that he does not repeat the use of a particular case marker (see (17)). In his

patient-focus constructions, he uses the nominative case twice. Thus, John’s appears

to have a mastery for case marker assignment in actor-focus sentences, but not for

patient-focus sentences.

I posit that for John’s patient-focus sentences such as the one in (20), he uses

the nominative case in the pre-predicate position because he recognizes that

pre-predicate DPs are always nominative in order for the sentence to be grammatical

as discussed by Schachter and Otanes (1972). But to account for John’s use of a

second nominative case in the post-predicate position, I posit that he uses this second

nominative case in an attempt to correctly indicate the DP where the semantic focus

of the patient-focus verb is placed. (20) shows a possible structure for John’s

patient-focus utterances, and how this constituency could influence the case

morphology he applies on DPs.

(20) [CP Yung bataʔ [VP k<in>ick yung bola]]

Det.NOM child <PF.PERF>kick Det.NOM ball


One might wonder though why John does not just use the actor-focus structure

for all his utterances so that he would have the correct case markers in his DPs. As

Seagalowitz and Galang (1976) concluded in their study though, Tagalog child

speakers prefer patient-focus sentences over actor-focus sentences. Thus, while

interference by English might be taking place in John’s Tagalog syntax, this does not

seem to happen in his semantic cognition. With this, I posit the following chain of

rules that John uses to construct Tagalog sentences:

(21) Word Order Rule: Use an SVO word order, like in English

No Linker Rule: Do not put ay linker between preverbal DP and the verb

Agent Rule: Place the agent of the verb in pre-predicate position

Nominative Case Rule: Assign nominative case to the DP in pre-predicate

position

Patient Focus Preference: Inflect the verb with the patient-focus morpheme

Patient Nominative Case Rule: Assign nominative case to the patient of

a patient-focus verb.


The above chain of rules show the possible interaction between John’s English

and Tagalog, as the first three rules resemble English, while the last two rules apply

to Tagalog only. (The nominative case rule naturally applies to both languages.)

Laughren (2002) examined the Australian language Warlpiri, which has word

order variations like Tagalog, but much less restricted. She discusses how distinct

case markers indicate grammatical functions in the DPs of a language that allows

such a syntactic variability. Indeed, Laughren’s analysis inversely complements

John’s syntactic patterns, since his fixed word order and the above rules allow him

to overlook the Tagalog case marking system.

While John has a preference to produce SVO in Tagalog , it is interesting to see

how much better he performed in understanding VOS sentences (see table 2).

Referring again to Seagalowitz and Galang (1976), this could be due to a tendency

for Tagalog child-speakers to have a preference for patient-focus sentences. Their

study also notes that Tagalog-speaking children associate the agent of the action with

the first noun of the sentence, and because VOS is the default word structure in

Tagalog and the first noun of VOS is the agent in a patient-focus sentence (refer to

(3) in §1.1), this could explain John’s above average performance in comprehending

this sentence type. It is very likely also that his parents often speak to John in

Tagalog using the default verb-initial constructions since SVO is quite rare in

Tagalog. This influence of input frequency could also be affecting his acquisition of

patient-focus SVO sentences and his ability to comprehend them.

Since I elicited Tagalog sentences, John’s performance in the production task

might not necessarily represent his natural Tagalog speech when he speaks to others

(e.g. his parents) in an everyday situation. Could the observer’s paradox have caused

John to respond to the production task stimuli in such a way? It would have been

also beneficial to see his use of Tagalog before he learned English and compare that

to his current Tagalog grammar. Additionally, it would be prudent to do a

longitudinal study of his Tagalog acquisition, as he grows older and see whether he

develops an adult-like grammar of the language or becomes a heritage speaker in the

long run. Studying the language development of other L1 Tagalog-speaking children

who live in English-speaking communities could also provide better insight about the

issue at hand, since it would open an opportunity to compare the data collected from

John and see whether the rules I posited above exist in the grammar of other

Tagalog-speaking children predominantly exposed to English.


5. Conclusion

Seeing how Tagalog and English work together—or more appropriately, in

interference—in John’s grammar provides new insight into the language development

of a child when he learns an L2 before fully acquiring his L1. As complemented by

research on American Russian, John’s Tagalog word order variability and case

marking restrictions became undone, possibly due to the influence of L2 English in

his L1 Tagalog grammar (Polinsky 1995, 2006). Indeed, this data only highlights

how variability in word order variation is inversely related to the richness of a case

marking system, as shown by John’s reduced sensitivity to case as he adheres to a

more rigid word order syntax (Laughren 2002). Through the lens of the patient-focus

construction, John’s performance also provides a different perspective in the

challenges of acquiring passives, as challenges were most prevalent in his ability to

assign case and comprehend word order variations in the Tagalog analogue of the

passive (Maratsos & Abramovitch 1975; Maratsos, Fox, Becker, & Chalkley 1985;

Borer & Wexler 1987). Most importantly, this study presents an alternative insight in

the linguistic cognition of a child, particularly in furthering research on how different

syntactic rules of distinct languages interact during the stages of language

development for a child learning two (or more) languages.

Nonetheless, further research should be done on other Tagalog-English bilingual

children to more deeply examine the data presented in this study. For one, a more

ethnographic approach to data collection of the child subject’s utterances in his

natural environment can avoid complications presented by unspontaneous elicitation.

Additionally, conducting a latitudinal study of multiple Tagalog-speaking children in

a predominantly English-speaking environment can provide a better understanding of

how John’s linguistic performance compares to that of other children in his situation.

Pursuing a longitudinal approach in investigating the language development of

Tagalog-speaking children immersed in predominantly English-speaking communities

can also provide an opportunity to describe the features of the final grammar that a

Tagalog heritage speaker might have when influenced by English. Lastly, it would

be interesting to see what the data would be like if the circumstances were reversed:

What might be the features of the grammar of a child whose L1 is English but is

predominantly exposed to Tagalog as his L2? As languages today continue to

interact more closely with each other, exploring these linguistic inquiries can provide


a better understanding of full language acquisition and how typologically dissimilar

languages interact with each other.

References

Aldridge, Edith. 2012. Antipassive and ergativity in Tagalog. Lingua, 122(3), 192-203.

De Guzman, Videa P. 1976. Syntactic derivation of Tagalog verbs. Oceanic Linguistics

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Kamide, Yuki, Christoph Scheeper and Gerry T. M. Altmann. 2003. Integration of syntactic

and semantic information in predictive processing: Cross-linguistic evidence from

German and English. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 32(1): 37-55. Chicago

Laughren, Mary. 2002. Syntactic constraints in a" free word order. Language Universals and

Variation: 83-130.

Maratsos, Michael and Rona Abramovitch. 1975. How children understand full, truncated,

and anomalus passives. Journal of Verbal learning and Verbal Behaviour: 14.

Maratsos, Michael, Dana E. Fox, Judith A. Becker and Mary Anne Chalkley. 1985.

Semantic restrictions on children’s passives. Cognition 19(2): 167-191.

Matthews, Danielle, Elena Lieven, Anna Theakston and Michael Tomasello. 2005. The role

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of arguments. Ph.D Thesis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reid, Lawrence A. and Hsiu-chuan Liao. 2004. A brief syntactic typology of Philippine

languages. Language and Linguistics 5(2): 433-90.

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Appendix

Abbreviations for GlossACC Accusative CaseAF Actor Focus

CAUS CausativeCont Contemplated AspectDAT DativeDEM DemonstrativeDet DeterminerDP Determiner Phrase

HON HonorificImp Imperfective AspectInv Involuntary

LINK LinkerNOM Nominative CasePAT PatientPN Personal NamePF Patient Focus

Perf Perfective AspectVol Voluntary

1. Images

(1) Stimuli: Marge was kicked by Bart (left)

SVO-Inverted: Bart was kicked by Marge (right)


VOS S<in>ipaʔ ni Bart si Marge.

<PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.ACC Bart Det.PN.NOM Marge

VSO S<in>ipaʔ si Marge ni Bart.

<PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.NOM Marge Det.PN.ACC Bart

SVO Si Marge ay s<in>ipaʔ ni Bart.

Det.PN.NOM Marge LINK <PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.ACC Bart

SVO-Inverted Si Bart ay s<in>ipaʔ ni Marge.

Det.PN.NOM Bart LINK <PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.ACC Marge

(2) Stimuli: The dog was bitten by the man (left)

SVO-Inverted: The man was bitten by the dog (right)

VOS K<in>agat ng lalaki ang aso

<PF.Perf>bite Det.ACC man Det.NOM dog

VSO K<in>agat ang aso ng lalaki

<PF.Perf>bite Det.NOM dog Det.ACC man

SVO Ang aso ay k<in>agat ng lalaki

Det.NOM dog LINK <PF.Perf>bite Det.ACC man

SVO-Inverted Ang lalaki ay k<in>agat ng aso

Det.NOM man LINK <PF.Perf>bite Det.ACC aso

(3) Stimuli: The man was kissed by the woman (right)

SVO-Inverted: The woman was kissed by the man (left)


VOS H<in>alikan ng babae ang lalaki

<PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC woman Det.NOM man

VSO H<in>alikan ang lalaki ng babae

<PF.Perf>kiss Det.NOM man Det.ACC woman

SVO Ang lalaki ay h<in>alikan ng babae

Det.NOM man LINK <PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC woman

SVO-Inverted Ang babae ay h<in>alikan ng lalaki

Det.NOM woman LINK <PF.Perf>kiss Det.ACC man

(4) Stimuli: The kite was flown by the child (left)

SVO-Inverted: The child was flown by the kite (right)


VOS P<in>a-lipad ng bataʔ ang saranggola

<PF.Perf>CAUS-fly Det.ACC child Det.NOM kite

VSO P<in>a-lipad ang saranggola ng bataʔ

<PF.Perf>CAUS-fly Det.NOM kite Det.ACC child

SVO Ang saranggola ay p<in>a-lipad ng bataʔ

Det.NOM kite LINK <PF.Perf>CAUS-flyDet.ACCchild

SVO-Inverted Ang bataʔ ay p<in>a-lipad ng saranggola

Det.NOM child LINK <PF.Perf>CAUS-fly Det.ACCkite

(5) Stimuli: The tiger was loved by the child (ambiguous, omitted)

SVO-Inverted: The child was loved by the tiger (ambiguous, omitted)

VOS M<in>ahal ng bataʔ ang tiger

<PF.Perf>love Det.ACC child Det.NOM tiger

VSO M<in>ahal ang tiger ng bataʔ

<PF.Perf>love Det.NOM tiger Det.ACC child

SVO Ang tiger ay m<in>ahal ng bataʔ

Det.NOM tiger LINK <PF.Perf>love Det.ACC child

SVO-Inverted Ang bataʔ ay m<in>ahal ng tiger

Det.NOM child LINK <PF.Perf>love Det.ACC tiger


1.1. Transcription of production task for John, child subject

(1) Yung lalaki k<in>i~kis poʔ yung babae.

Det.NOM man <PF>Imp~kiss HON Det.NOM woman

‘The woman is being kissed by the man’

(2) Yung babae s<in>untok poʔ yung lalaki

Det.NOM woman <PF.Perf>punch HON Det.NOM man

‘The man is punched by the woman’

(3) Yung lalaki h<in>u~hugasan yung kotse

Det.NOM man <PF>Imp~wash Det.NOM car

‘The man is washing the car’

(4) *Yung meilman na-kagat sa aso

Det.NOM mailman <AF.Perf>bite Det.DAT dog

‘The mailman bit (to) the dog’ but the image shows ‘The dog bit the

mailman.’

(5) Yung bata nag-try kuha-nin yung football

Det.NOM child <AF.Perf>try get<PF> Det.NOM football

‘The child tried to get the football’

(6) *Yung titser t<in>u~turuan paano yun poʔ

Det.NOM teacher <PF>Imp~teach how that.DEM HON

‘The teacher is teaching how that’

(7) Yung pusaʔ t<in>a~try-ing5 kuha-nin yung mouse

Det.NOM cat <PF>Imp~try-PROG get-PF Det.NOM mouse

‘[The cat]1 is trying [it]1 to get the mouse’

(8) Yung bataʔ nag-hu~hugas ng kamay

Det.NOM child AF-Imp~wash Det.ACC hand

‘The child is washing the hands’

(9) Yung babae h<in>a~hag yung aso

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~hug Det.NOM dog

‘The dog is being hugged by the woman’

(10) Yung lalaki t<in>i~tink na lab poʔ yung babae

5 This –ing appears to be the English verb progressive morpheme that arises due to John’s

code-switching in his speech. Notice that it happens in the same verb that has the Tagalog

imperfective aspect.


Det.NOM man <PF>Imp~think LINK love HON Det.NOM woman

‘The man thinks that loves the girl’

(11) (a) *Yung Cookie Monster s<in>ipa yung Elmo # si Elmo

Det.NOM cookie monster <PF.Perf>kick Det.NOM Elmo #

Det.PN.NOM Elmo

‘*Elmo is kicked by Cookie Monster’

(b) Si Cookie Monster s<in>ipaʔ si Elmo

Det.PN.NOM Cookie Monster <PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.NOM Elmo

‘Elmo is kicked by Cookie Monster’

(12) Yung babae p<in>a~pa-kain yung bataʔ

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~CAUS-eat Det.NOM child

‘The child is being fed by the woman’

(13) Yung bataʔ k<um>a~kain ng watermelon

Det.NOM child <AF>Imp~eat Det.ACC watermelon

‘The child is eating the watermelon’

(14) Yung lalaki s<um>i~sigaw sa babae

Det.NOM man <AF>Imp~shout Det.DAT woman

‘The man is shouting at the woman’

(15) Yung babae na-gu~gustu-han yung lalaki

Det.NOM woman Inv-Imp~like-PF Det.NOM man

‘The man is being liked by the woman’

(16) (a) *Yung babae t<in>i~teach poʔ yung bataʔ na yung storya

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~teach HON Det.NOM child LINK

Det.NOM story

‘*The child is being taught by the woman that the story’

(b) Yung babae s<in>a~sabi ano nang-ya~yari sa storya

Det.NOM woman <PF>Imp~say what AF-Imp~happen Det.DAT story

‘What is happening in the story is being said by the woman’

(17) Yung babae nag-ka~kat ng papel para mero-ng

Det.NOM woman AF-Imp~cut Det.ACC paper purpose.clause

existential-LINK

gawa-in

do-PF


‘The woman is cutting paper, so that there could be something to be

done’

(18) Yung meilman mero-ng bi-bigay sa bataʔ

Det.NOM mailman existential-LINK Cont-give Det.DAT child

‘The mailman has something to give to the child’

(19) Yung babae nag-la~laro ng videogames

Det.NOM woman AF-Imp~play Det.ACC videogames

‘The woman is playing videogames’

(20) Yung bataʔ nag-hu~hugas sa aso

Det.NOM child AF-Imp~wash Det.DAT dog

‘The child is washing the dog’

(21) Yung lalaki na-gu~gustu-han yung babae

Det.NOM man Inv-Imp~like-PF Det.NOM woman

‘The woman is being liked by the man’

(22) Yung bataʔ k<in>ick yung bola

Det.NOM child <PF.Perf>kick Det.NOM ball

‘The ball is kicked by the child’

(23) Yung lalaki w<in>a~water poʔ yung halaman

Det.NOM man <PF>Imp~water HON Det.NOM plant

‘The plant is being watered by the man’

(24) Nag-ku~kulay yung # yung bataʔ nag-ku~kulay

AF-Imp~color Det.NOM # Det.NOM child AF-Imp~color

‘The child is coloring (the pictures)’

(25) Yung bataʔ um-i~iyak

Det.NOM child AF-Imp~cry

‘The child is crying’

(26) Yung bataʔ b<um>a~basa

Det.NOM child <AF>Imp~read

‘The child is reading’

(27) Yung lalaki um-i~isip ano yung ga-gaw-in sa pensil

Det.NOM man AF-Imp~think what Det.NOM Cont-do-PF Det.DAT

pencil

‘The man is thinking what is to be done with the pencil’

(28) Yung bataʔ nag-drip ng ice cream sa lalaki


Det.NOM child AF.Perf-drip Det.ACC ice cream Det.DAT man

‘The child dripped ice cream on the man’

(29) Yung babae nag-la~lagay ng dirt para mag-grow

Det.NOM woman AF-Imp~place Det.ACC dirt purpose.clause

Vol-grow

yung halaman

Det.NOM plant

‘The woman is placing dirt so that the plant would grow’

1.2. Transcription of production task for Sandra, adult control

(30) H<in>a~halikan ng lalaki yung dalaga

<PF>Imp~kiss Det.ACC man Det.NOM young.woman

‘The young woman is being kissed by the man’

(31) S<in>untuk ng babae yung mamaʔ

<PF.Perf>punch Det.ACC woman Det.NOM adult.man

‘The man was punched by the woman’

(32) Yung lalaki ay nag-li~linis ng kotse

Det.NOM man LINK AF-Imp~wash Det.ACC car

‘The man is washing the car’

(33) K<in>agat ng aso yung kartero

<PF.Perf>bit Det.ACC dog Det.Nom mailman

‘The mailman was bitten by the dog’

(34) S<in>a~salo ng bataʔ yung bola

<PF>Imp~catch Det.ACC child Det.NOM ball

‘The ball was being caught by the child’

(35) Siya ay nag-tu~turo

3rd

.sg.NOM LINK AF-Imp~teach

‘She is teaching’

(36) H<in>abol ni Tom si Jerry

<PF.Perf>chase Det.PN.ACC Tom Det.PN.NOM Jerry

‘Jerry is being chased by Tom’

(37) Ang bataʔ ay nag-hu~hugas ng kamay

Det.NOM child LINK AF-Imp~wash Det.ACC hands


‘The child is washing his hands’

(38) Ni-ya~yakap nung ale yung aso

PF-Imp~hug Det.ACC adult.female Det.NOM dog

‘The dog is being hugged by the woman’

(39) Yung bataʔ ay in-lab doon sa katabi nya-ng

Det.NOM child LINK in.love there Det.DAT adjacent

3rd

.sg.ACC-LINK

babae

woman

‘The boy is in love with the girl next to him’

(40) S<in>ipaʔ ni Cookie Monster si Elmo

<PF.Perf>kick Det.PN.ACC Cookie Monster Det.PN.NOM Elmo

‘Elmo was kicked by Cookie Monster’

(41) P<in>a~pa-kain ng nanay yung kanya-ng anak

<PF>Imp~CAUS-eat Det.ACC mother Det.NOM 3rd

.sg.GEN-LINK

offspring

‘[Her]i child is being fed by [the mother]i’

(42) K<um>a~kain sya ng pakwan

<AF>Imp~eat 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC watermelon

‘He is eating watermelon’

(43) S<in>igawan nung matanda-ng lalaki yung bataʔ

<PF.Perf>shot Det.ACC old-LINK man Det.NOM child

‘The child was yelled at by the old man’

(44) ʔ<in>i~isip nung babae ang kanyang mahal

<PF>Imp~think Det.ACC womanDet.NOM 3rd

.sg.GEN-LINK love

‘[Her]i love is being thought of by [the woman] I’

(45) Sya ay nag-tu~turoʔ sa mga bataʔ

3rd

.sg.NOM LINK AF-Imp~teach Det.DAT PL child

‘He is teaching the children’

(46) G<in>unting nya ang karton

<PF.Perf>scissors 3rd

.sg.ACC Det.NOM box

‘The box is being cut by her (using scissors)’

(47) ʔ<in>a~abot ng kartero ang kahonsa bataʔ

<PF>Imp~reach Det.ACC mailman Det.NOM box Det.DATchild


‘The box is being handed over to the child by the mailman’

(48) Nag-la~laro sya ng Nintendo

AF-Imp~play 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC Nintendo

‘She is playing Nintendo’

(49) P<in>a~pa-liguan ng bata ang kanyang alaga-ng aso

<PF>Imp~CAUS-bath Det.ACC child Det.NOM 3rd

.sg.GEN pet- LINK

dog

‘[His]i pet dog is being bathed by [the child]i‘

(50) T<in>i~tingnan ng lalaki ang larawan ng kanyang

<PF>Imp~look Det.ACC man Det.NOM picture of 3rd.sg.GEN-LINK

s<in>i~sinta-ng dilag

<PF>Imp~adore-LINK young.woman

‘The image of the woman that [he]i adores is being looked at by [the

man]i’

(51) S<in>ipa ng bataʔ yung bola

<PF.Perf>kick Det.ACC child Det.NOM ball


(52) Nag-di~dilig sya ng halaman

AF-Imp~water 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC plant

‘She is watering the plants’

(53) Sya ay nag-do~drowing

3rd

.sg.NOM LINK AF-Imp~draw

‘He is drawing’

(54) ʔ<um>i~iyak ang bataʔ

AF-Imp~cry Det.NOM child

‘The child is crying’

(55) Nag-ba~basa sya ng libro

AF-Imp~read 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC book

‘He is reading a book’

(56) Naka-kita sya ng lapis

Inv.Perf-see 3rd

.sg.NOM Det.ACC pencil

‘She saw a pencil’

(57) Na-ga~galit ang tatay doon sa bata-ng d<in>umihan

AF-Imp~anger Det.NOM father there Det.DAT child-LINK <PF.Perf>mess


ang kanya-ng ulo

Det.NOM 3rd

.sg.GEN-LINK head

‘The father is being angry at the child who got mess on his head’

(58) Nag-ta~tanim ang bataʔ ng dalya

AF-Imp~plant Det.NOM child Det.ACCsunflower

‘The child is planting sunflower’

Seth H Ronquillo

Department of Linguistics

University of California, Los Angeles

3125 Campbell Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543

Email: [email protected]

Received: 2014. 11. 12.

Revised: 2015. 04. 18.

Accepted: 2015. 04. 18.

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